At Helheim's Gates
by Livyathan
Summary: "The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone." - Harriet Beecher Stowe. A series of one-shots.
1. By Helheim's Wrath

By Helheim's Wrath

—ж—

"_War is a malignant disease, an idiocy, a prison, and the pain it causes is beyond telling or meaning; but war was our condition and our history, the place we had to live in."_  
- Martha Gelhorn

—ж—

Berk was utterly and undeniably lost.

The thought of losing his beloved village to the tribe from the North had haunted Hiccup's mind since the first cries of an attack early yesterday morning. He had tried his best to banish the thought, to focus solely on his duty as chief and protect the village, but his efforts had failed in achieving the desired outcome. With a bloody broadsword held high in the fading light, he charged through the asphyxiating clouds of smoke and dust and jumped head-long into the seething ranks of the enemy. A monster of a man had fallen on his sword moments before, and Hiccup had easily brought his second weapon, a shorter sword perfect for close-combat, across the man's throat and half severed the wretched invader's head from his body.

He turned his face away from the hot spray, and snapped the sword back up to block another incoming attack, when a feeling of claustrophobia clutched at his body: they were everywhere. Everywhere Hiccup turned their swords and spears and axes ripped and tore mercilessly into flesh, their warrior howls piercing the haunting rhythmic beat of the drummers positioned on the flagship of the invading fleet now docked in the harbor. A thin wall of perspiration formed beneath the metal plates of his helmet; he had long ago tossed away any external hindrances including his heavy cloak. His shield remained strapped to his back along with a spare mace. The village, like many of her proud warriors, had been smashed and destroyed and was burning to the ground, pierces of her proud, peaceful face scattered everywhere.

Thick fingers caught the young man about his shoulder, and with all of his strength behind it, Hiccup turned and brought down his sword and split the man's skull clear to the eyes; blood and brain matter splashing crudely across Hiccup's face; his weapon easily freed itself as he lunged violently at his next opponent. Straightening his legs, he whirled and hammered the crest of his weapon to the dirty face of another man, he gave no glance back as the body crumpled to the ground and was slain by Fishlegs. A cry alerted him to another attack, and whirling again, grabbed the spiked mace from his back and rammed the tip through the man's jaw; the crunch of bones sending an involuntary shiver up Hiccup's spine. The man squirmed violently, blood streaming from his nostrils and eyes and into his thick black beard. Taking a deep breath, Hiccup thrust his sword into the man's chest, gritting his teeth at the sound of chain mail scrapping on the steel as it pierced gut and finally encountered spine before bursting through the other end, gleaming sickeningly in the twilight. He twisted the weapon back out and sucked and blew, and sucked and blew and finally, after what had felt like an eternity, leaned heavily on his sword and looked around.

The once proud village had near completely burned to the ground. To his left, the Forge had already gone up in flames, the forge's heavy fires and flammable chemicals igniting the process further, causing deadly fire balls to shoot from the roof when the building nearly exploded. To his right, his charges and the enemy had broken into the Mead Hall, causing the building to become a place of utter death and confusion. Above him, dragons and riders had taken to the skies, burning everything and anything they could. He had charged Toothless with protecting his wife and his children with the dragon's life, although his wife, once angered, was a force to be reckoned with. Large areas of burned and charred earth smoked around him from the flaming projectiles fired by the enemy, and the fiery death raining down from their winged allies. Many of the villagers had restored to ignited barrels of oil on fire and pouring them on the invaders from elevated areas. Around him, screams of the burning, caught in the yellow jelly-liked substance, surrounded him. Many of them fled for anything that might relinquish their pain, but in the village, none was to be found. Those who did not run immediately for the cliffs leading to the icy Baltic waters below were slashed down by the Berk Vikings if they had not yet succumbed to their demise.

Behind him, a familiar cry echoed and Hiccup turned just in time to see the pick of Snotlout's war hammer flash and sink up to the half in a shield maiden's face and rip it away. Heaving his weapon up from the ground, Hiccup had not time to react before the pommel of a heavy weapon met his nose, the familiar crack of cartilage ringing in his ears. Staggering backwards, his weapons fell from his hands and sank in the mud beneath his feet. Hiccup struggled to regain the lost footing of his handicap, and the man swung again; the searing pain of hot metal meeting his face caused Hiccup to cry out as a long gash appeared to split his face from ear to ear. Hot liquid rushed down his face, and he tried his best to not be drowned in his own lifeblood as the crimson taste filled his throat and coated his teeth. Again, he stepped back, only to stumble again and fall, the bloodied broken face of Ruffnut glancing back at him through dead eyes, her body half buried in the mud.

"Well, well," His attacker grumbled, "It seems tha' aye've quite the catch! The chief 'imself! Such a scrawny thing yoo are." Hiccup scrambled for something to fight back with, a weapon, a rock, a stick, anything. But his hands only slipped in the mud, and he had failed at regaining his footing. Broken teeth gleamed back at him as the attacker raised a heavy two-handed broadsword.

A piercing scream filled Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III's head as he felt hot steel scrape through his chainmail, and rip through his chest as fresh blood filled his throat. Another scream and he felt the earth shift as a heavy body thundered to the ground beside him. Above him, a blurred vision of blonde hair and toxic green eyes came into view. He could hear children crying in the background. A mouth was moving, but he could hear no words. Was it his fleeting prayers to Odin, or his wife's cries of mercy to Freya? He did not know. As the heavens above opened to cry for their fallen champion, Hiccup's world went black with one fleeting breath.

Sixteen hours later, after seeing the bloodied, murdered body of their chieftain, the village of Berk rallied like none before them had ever seen, and had managed to slaughter every member of the North tribe they could find.


	2. Mors Bellator: A Warrior's Death

Mors Bellator

—ж—

"_Sorrows cannot all be explained away in a life truly lived, grief and loss accumulate like possessions._"  
- Stefan Kanfer

—ж—

Ruffnut feels the air forcefully rush from her lungs. This must feel like drowning, she thinks, as she suddenly finds it harder to breath, harder to contain her emotions, her anger, with each word that passes his split lips. She remains in denial as she sprints through the village, convinces herself this must be some cruel, cruel joke; he cannot be gone. He promised he would come back – he **had**__to come back. He said everything would be fine, that they'd gone through worse things; that it was just another raid. He had promised that they would have a life together, and grow old and senile and crazy until Ragnarök. But the look in his best friend's eyes, eyes so much like her own, is painful and withered. She hears screaming in the background as another raider is slaughtered. But she doesn't care; she has to find him, to prove to herself that they are wrong. She hears her best friend crying in the background, cradled by their chief as he watches after her. Footsteps identical to her own race after her, his voice begs her to stop, but she does not listen. Behind them, Fishlegs has smashed in the skull of a dead warrior in anger with his war hammer.

She skids to a halt in the mud as she clears the edge of the forest where they had been fighting. Finding him is not difficult, as she approaches the front door of what would have been their house, now a smoldering pile of ashes and burnt stone. Nobody has touched him, either in sympathy or in fear of invoking her infamous temper.

A heavy broad sword is lodged in his chest. A large gash in his forehead has leaked blood into his pale eyes, and his jaw is slack, hanging open beneath a gruff beard. A small trail of blood runs from his broken nose, and she can see that is teeth are coated in the copper liquid. The leather twined necklace she had given him for his birthday peeks out from under his torn shirt; the ring on his finger sparkles sickeningly with every crack of lightening from above. His once bright eyes, those rambunctious eyes once so full of life and happiness and love, love for her, now force a blank stare to the heavens above. They are devoid of life, of pain, of anything and everything. She feels her knees sink in the muddy ground; her shoulders had already begun to shake with unshed tears. In a rare display of raw emotion, she tenderly reaches out, and brushed his shaggy hair from his broken face. A face that will never smile at her again, or laugh, or entice her with a corny pick-up line, or tell her how beautiful he thinks she is.

She feels that tears coming now, forcing their way down her own dirty, bloody cheeks. She knows he did this for her, fought for their future and their children. Children they will never have in a future that no longer exists. Finally, the pain is too much, the weight of reality too heavy, and sobs finally shake her strong shoulders. She begins to mumble nonsense, things that only he would understand. She can feel her brother's eyes on her, he stands only feet away. She wants to scream, to cry and shout and slaughter. It isn't fair, she thinks, about how Astrid still as Hiccup and how Tuffnut still has his wife. Finally, she collapses against his cold skin, a sensation foreign when compared to his usually flush complexion. Suddenly, the short years growing up that they spent together pale in comparison to what they could have had, to what they never will. Grief and loss tug painfully at her heartstrings; they will consume everything that she shared with him. Her tears soak his shirt, and her heart shatters with the sad, terrible truth: Snotlout was gone, and despite her pleas, her cries and broken prayers, he was never coming back.


	3. In Love, Trust

In Love, Trust

—ж—

"_The best proof of love is trust."  
_- Dr. Joyce Brothers

—ж—

When he speaks, his husky voice is barely a whisper, "Please. You have to trust me."

Calloused fingers, hardened and rough from years of mastering techniques at the forge, brushed against her soft cheek. Her own hands, now nimble and quick from weaving, fidgeted with the hem of her shirt. Flashes of blonde and auburn fall before his eyes; his forehead is pressed against hers. They are hidden away behind the walls of their house, the house he had built with only the help of Fishlegs to guide him. Astrid inhales; he smells of fire, and coal, old paper and charcoal and something else. Something entirely Hiccup. She does not like the prospect of this journey, he can see it if the firm line of her mouth and the rigid set of her shoulders. He knows she is having trouble looking at him; the last raid by the northern-most tribe has left a deep, ugly scar across his cheek and jaw. She feels his other hand come to rest on her hip; she can see the glint of his wedding ring from the corner of her eye. Unintentionally, her gaze falls to that hideous, ugly thing that was supposed to be a decent replacement for flesh and blood, and she cannot help but think that in some way, that thing it is a product of her own faults. He has told her multiple times over that none of it was her fault, that it was the dragon. Her faith in his words is small, but strong. Slowly, her eyes trace a pattern up towards his face; she picks out every scar hidden beneath his clothing, some caused by the forge, others by wrestling with Toothless. The worst ones always come from the raids. She can picture the small scars on his chest, the arrow hole in his shoulder, the slice from an axe that resulted in several broken ribs. She does not know, but somehow he always manages to bounce back, to wake up the next day with a laugh on his lips and a smile behind those emerald eyes. She thinks back to a time when she thought that he would never awaken, that the Gods had finally taken him home. A small scar on his face has already broken up one of his unruly eyebrows; two scars break up his lip diagonally, cruelly cutting into his trimmed beard. She shakes her head forcefully, and remembers that they are not longer children. His twenty-fifth birthday was just two days ago.

Shaken hands reach out for him, desperately curling into his shirt with more ferocity, more need. She had been fiercely independent before Hiccup came along, so much so that the village elders thought she was destined to become a shield maiden: a powerful woman ready to die for her village, but alone nonetheless. She thought that was what she wanted, a life free to make her own decisions, her own choices about love. But she had been wrong. In the end, her heart had chosen for her: the lanky, socially awkward, brilliant, auburn haired son of the Chief. Eventually, she forces her gaze ever upward, until, beneath all the scars and calloused skin, his warm, loving gaze smiles back at her. Tears begin to blur her vision as she leans forward, her broken spirit seeking solace in his warm arms. She automatically encircles his waist and he sighs in relief; he hadn't realized he had been holding his breath. His arms find their way around her shoulders and his fingers nestle themselves in her hair. He places a soft kiss on her temple as she buries her face in the crook of his neck and bites her lip to keep from crying. She doesn't need to say anything; the simple action is enough to put his fears at ease… if only for the moment.

Come what may, he knows that she will always trust him.


	4. L'Ultima Notte: The Last Night

L'Ultima Notte

—ж—

"…_The very ground you stand on will be ripped from beneath you… As you slowly lose everything, you will wonder why you weren't enough. You will reach a point where you will wish darkness could fill the void. And you will wonder why, in the end, you couldn't save them. You will realize that you are only human, and to be human is to have one foot already in the grave…"  
_- The Forsaken

—ж—

He found her sprawled out on the dirty floor of his forge.

Her skull had been smashed apart like a broken jar of mead. His coat had fallen in a pool from her shoulders and her shirt was drenched with something black that gleamed like streaks of molasses through her pale yellow hair. Standing over her, with the uninterested expression of a hunter who'd taken down a wounded fowl, was a stocky youth, wispily bearded and half a head shorter than he. He was wrapped in heavy furs and chainmail, and the insignia of the Langerhans Vikings was forged into his belt buckle and broach. By his side, he held a thick, short sword, clotted with the molasses-like substance and strands of her beautiful hair. When the youth took his gaze away from the murdered young woman, his eyes were dead as stones. His roving gaze held Hiccup for no more time than he spent on the anvil and the tools. He grunted a question in an alien tongue.

Hiccup stood stranded in the forge's heat, though his insides had gone as cold and icy as the Baltic waters. Emptied of breath. Emptied of will. Gone was each and every feeling he had formerly known. He turned and glanced at the blade he had been crafting earlier in the day, still resting cruelly in the smoldering flames. A fiery bronze crept across the bevels and towards the dark blue spine. The final temper was slipping from his grasp, as was the life of the young woman splayed at his feet, and with it all the magic he had spun into it, and too, his father's pride when he saw what he had almost created. It was these things that he could not let stand. Clamping the tongs fast on the weapon, he pulled the blade clear of the hot coals and turned.

The boy-murderer had begun advancing towards him; his face betrayed no alarm until he saw what Hiccup now carried. The bolt of fear that pierced him now betrayed is youth, but even still it earned him no mercy from the other Viking. And, as if of its' own volition, the dagger lunged forward with Hiccup attached, the hot air shimmering in the force of the attack. Hiccup lunged through the first pace with heavy feet, and through the second pace with a rage that choked every inch of him. By the third pace, raw hatred drove the point of the dagger and the man. An alien cry sprang from the boy-murderer, and Hiccup ran the blade through the boy's gut. Flesh sizzled on the steel as he ran the boy back against the wall; the stench of burning wool and fat filled his throat and burned his nostrils as the stony eyes in the twisted face bulged in horror and pain. The murderer screamed and dropped his sword and grabbed and screamed and screamed again as the red hot tangs stripped his palms down to sinew and bone. Hiccup clamped his left hand across the screaming lips. He leaned into the tongs until their jaws met the heaving belly and the tip of the dagger began to grate against bone.

The youth's stomach convulsed violently, and the boy vomited blood through Hiccup's fingers. Hiccup squeezed his hand tighter. Blood streaked from the boy's nostrils, and the now skinless hands continued to claw at the tongs and the stocky chest of the boy continued to convulse in futile spasms. Hiccup watched, motionless, as the light in the stony eyes faded, and he completed his shameless prayer to Freya. Hiccup pulled the dagger free and starred at the blade; it had become black as sin down to the small guard. The boy's body folded to the ground, but Hiccup did not even offer a final, fleeting glance. Now, in the quite of the forge, Hiccup heard the coarse shouting of the Langerhans Tribe, and the cries of chaos erupting from the village below. Astrid lay in the doorway, bloodied and still. Like the boy, something had passed from her that was no longer there.

Hiccup squeezed the hilt in his hand. The dagger's final quench had not been the purest dew but a murderer's blood, and if its destiny and purpose were now other than he had planned, so too were his own. He searched for a prayer on his still tongue, but found none. Something had been torn too, from within him, and not even Odin could restore it. Grabbing his coat, Hiccup once again covered her stilled body. Stepping out into the cold, a thick steam rose from the blackened dagger in his fist, as if the forge contained a shift bored up from Helheim and he were a demon warrior newly ascended. The small worker's courtyard was empty. The heavens at the mountain's edge were cast in a sickening vermillion cloud. Thunder rolled loud in the distance. He hastily walked across the cobbles, sick with fear. Fear of whatever vileness afflicted his village. Fear of shame. Of cowardice. Of the knowledge that he couldn't save her. Of the darkness that had now housed itself inside his spirit. Yet the darkness spoke with a feral, sweet-tasting power that brooked neither refusal nor hesitation.

Plunge in, the darkness whispered, sweet and sickening to his hurting soul.

Hiccup turned and looked back at the forge. For the first time, he saw not a place of wonder and mystery, but rather a drab stone hut. A drab stone hut with the corpse of his lover, and the corpse of a man he had killed, inside.

Like the blade in the quench.

Plunge in.

Hiccup made his way down towards the village center, now ripe with death, and fire and screaming children and the bodies of slaughtered men. Familiar faces starred back at him in horror: Greta the sheep herder, Vyadek the shipbuilder, all had expressions of horror and pain; of lives stricken to early, and of words left unsaid and deeds undone. Hiccup prayed for every one as he searched for his friends, his family, anyone. Hiccup held back the tears he hadn't earned. He'd failed his lover. He'd failed his father. His step-mother's corpse lay violated by beasts. He alone was left standing, dispossessed and powerless and lost and angry.

His pain was clean and true and vivid as it cleared his mind. His step-mother had denied them when they'd wanted even more than her flesh: her surrender and humiliation. The laying down of her Viking pride. Hiccup clutched the blade against his arm where it would not be seen. Without haste – for if the blade was still warm, his blood now ran cold – he waded into atrocity to claim his share.

The first creature shuddered and whooped in bestial spasm and his companions cheered, and he rose to his feet and stumbled backwards with his breeches around his knees. A second beast knelt to penetrate his step-mother and the other three groped her thighs and breasts to arouse themselves for their turn. All but the occupied beast looked to Hiccup and the fire raging behind emerald eyes. To them, he was nothing more than a wretched, misbegotten boy, another victim in their violent conquests of foreign land. A cry in their alien tongue from another group seemed to concern them more than the boy with the knife and the feral grin. The cry did nothing to deter Hiccup. The darkness rose within him and he felt free at last.

He plunged in.


	5. Hallowed Be Thy Name

Hallowed Be Thy Name

—ж—

"_We have become wild beasts. We do not fight, we defend ourselves against annihilation. It is not against men that we fling our bombs, what do we know of men in this moment when Death is hunting us down – now, for the first time in three days we can see his face, now for the first time in three days we can oppose him; we feel a mad anger. No longer do we live helpless, waiting on the scaffold, we can destroy and kill, to save ourselves, to save ourselves and be revenged."_

– Erich Maria Remarque  
All Quiet On the Western Front

—ж—

How long had Hiccup been standing in the square? Had it been thirty minutes or an hour? He could not remember, and the thought passed quickly from his mind. The only thought that had formed since daylight was one of survival. The Langerhans had struck again, and had caught the village completely off-guard. Colored flames decorated the skies above him; any available rider had quickly taken to the air in an attempt to sink the quickly approaching fleet.

A shriek brought Hiccup from his thoughts. Turning, he spotted the next hideous wave of Vikings cresting the hill before him. His first opponent was easily chosen: the ferocious, heavily armored shield maiden leading the charge. Hiccup gripped his father's spiked mace at the hilt; his own weapon, a finely crafted broadsword, was clutched in his other hand. His mother's shield was strapped securely on his back. The woman carried a strongly-made battle axe, the kind that could easily slice a man to the navel. Hiccup advanced only a single step, his emerald eyes gleaming in the midday sun. The movement was enough to let his grip loosen on the mace so it dropped to his thigh, and opened the chainmail armor he wore enough as to tempt the woman's blade to his chest. As the down-thrust from the maiden's axe descendent upon him, Hiccup pulled his right leg back in an oblique turn and deflected the shaft with his sword, allowing him to drive the spiked tip of the mace into the exposed armpit of the woman; he slid his hand up the shaft for a shorter grip. The woman bellowed and screamed and screaming again as any creature would, as her lung was punctured and her feet left the ground with the force of the strike; Hiccup took her backward and down, swiping the sword across the warrior's throat and half-severing the wretched woman's head.

He turned his face from the hot spray, and snapped the sword back up to block another incoming attack from above; bringing his line of vision up with the sword, Hiccup straightened his legs, hammering the crest of his weapon into the man's bearded face. Blood and sweat flew and lunged up with the mace, still in a shortened grip, and rammed the spike through the man's face, severing his cheek and tongue in one fluid motion. The man squirmed pathetically; fresh blood streaming from his nostrils and split lips. Hiccup grabbed the man at his shoulder and flung him around, using his latest opponent as a meat shield against his comrades. Hiccup took a deep breath as he waded into the fray, making his way towards Tuffnut as the man's arms and legs were hacked off without remorse by his companions. Thrusting out with his weapon, chain mail scrapping on the steel as it pierced a gut and encountered spine. He twisted the weapon out, and drew another deep breath, teeth gritted, and flung the broken, armless man at the charging feet of the next man, which stumbled and fell onto his elbows. Hiccup lengthened the grip on his mace and coshed and killed the man with a single blow, the flanges of the mace biting through the rear of the skull and dyeing the man's blonde hair and armor a dark crimson.

Straightening up, he drew a pained breath and shook the sweat from his auburn hair. The slash to his ribs sustained earlier burned in protest to his recent retaliation. His chest was tight; he felt nauseous, weak. His stumped leg burned with the burned he had forced upon the handicap.

Glancing over the hill, Hiccup watched the horde shoulder one another in the frenzy to stamped through the village's choke point: the dock ramps leading into the island. Their weapons remained constricted here, one shield obstructing another. This is where the dragons had dealt the fleet the most damage; scorched and burned bodies retreated to the cool waters of the Baltic with each pass of the winged demons above. Another cry, and Hiccup had thrown himself back into the throng. A blow glanced off his helmet and hammered into his pauldron. _Spike him in the privates, stab him in the neck_, Hiccup thought as the man fought on from his knees, blinded by the fountain spewing from his arteries, still flailing with his sword for the joints in Hiccup's armor. Hiccup drove the final blow through the man's temple and stepped back. _Step back again. Keep them at bay._ He threw an upward sword cut to the thighs and a backstroke to the guts and a thrust to the chest, in deep and twist. Another maiden had collapsed dead at his feet. _Don't look in the eyes_. The woman is done. An X-block, but with no room to swing, Hiccup struggled against the larger man to follow, before he managed a pommel strike to open him up and cosh him on the shoulders and collapse his chest with another thrust.

For a moment, he leaned on his sword and panted.

Half a day had passed in defending the village; half a day' worth of casualties to add to the list. Greta. Vyadek. Fern. Aslan. All had died defending their village, their pride. Alsan and Fern had fallen trying to protect the few village children not old enough or strong enough to wield a blade. Ruffnut too, had fallen, having gone out in a blaze of glory and an ocean of blood left behind in her wake. At thirty-two, Hiccup felt sick to the gut and utterly drained. His body had already begun begging for refreshments and eight hours sleep. Where was the strength and wind he had once possessed in overabundance? For the first time in almost four years, he was deeply shaken. He had never before fought men so difficult to kill, so reluctant to die when they were already dead. These Langerhans were maniacs and he was not – had never been. The afternoon stretched before him and he could not yet see the day's end. He was afraid, not of death, but of merely the effort in which it would take to simply survive. Yet, his second wind would come. He could feel it, buzzing deep in the bowels of his stomach and coursing through his veins. That, or a shared grave at the bottom of the Baltic Sea. To the clank and hiss of hammer and sword, Tuffnut and Snotlout drew level on the ground behind him, each soused from helm to greaves in sweat-speckled gore, their beards all matted and agleam, as if they'd drunk straight from a barrel of molasses.

Hiccup roused his Viking pride: He could not let himself be shammed by a tanned-skinned shipbuilder and the blonde carpenter. The three of them stood abreast at the mounting redoubt of corpses piled at their feet, and proceeded to impale the Langerhans foremen as they scrambled over their dead. Hiccup glanced over his shoulder towards the smoldering pile of stone and wood that was once his beloved forge: inside, the bodies of Astrid and her killer burned on the hot coals; the smell of burning flesh caused his nostrils to flare. To his right, Fishlegs' body rested atop the bloody pile that he had taken with him; he had died protecting his wife and young son Audun. Hiccup cracked his neck and heaved his heavy weapon to his shoulder. Swift and cruel this warfare was, with bludgeon and spike and blade, and the villagers that remained ventured up behind them and with their hammers and axes gave the group some respite from the sheer weight of their foreign warriors thrust upon them. A fresh shower of fireballs rained from above, and Hiccup and the others crouched with covered heads as the flames brought with them death and injury from above; the Langerhans stumbled in disarray. They had been used to fighting off the winged beasts during raids to protect their homes, but never had they encountered them as working as allies with the Berk Vikings. A triumphant roar erupted from the cliffs above, as survivors drenched their attackers in burning jelly salvaged from the mess hall; the attack ignited more panic among warriors known for stoicism and a rigid military lifestyle. Those drenched in the jelly fled for anything that might relinquish their pain, but none was found. Those who had not already found themselves in the icy waters below or had fallen to their demise were slashed and cut down. A wave of brief relief again washed over them, before another group thundered up the hill in a seemingly never-ending wave.

Tuffnut roared: "Back to back!"

Snotlout's war hammer flashed and the pick sank up the half in the face of a shield maiden and tore it half away. Hiccup swiveled and the pauldrons of the three warriors clashed together. Shoulder to shoulder, in a circle of woe, they stood, and woe was all their assailants found to greet them. Like the ancient warriors of old, the companions ravaged and butchered all their stirred within reach, hostile blows ringing from their harness as they were forced to give up what little ground they had won, overwhelmed by the horde's sheer force and staggering numbers, and reluctantly shuffled back through the flames towards the cliff wall that towered over the village, and towards the rest of the villagers; their footing unsteady on the smoldering mattress of the mutilated and slain and dying.

The dense smell of roasting meet was repulsively appetizing, and Hiccup's mouth filled with juices. A child of fifteen ran himself through on the point of Hiccup's sword, and with such frenzy did he come that his chest hammered hard into the quillions. Hiccup spiked the squalling boy in the head with the finial and like a farmer pitching a wheat blade he hefted the child aside, and a slash came at this head at Hiccup barely managed a parry with the mace half and he chopped his blade into legs as hard as cedar. The man dropped to his knees, and Hiccup worked his sword down into his chest, and an uncontrollable nausea exploded up his gullet, and his mace dangled by its wrist loop, and he doubled up over the sword, with both hands gripping the cross guard, and he vomited a torrent of gall and phlegm into the dying man's screaming, contorted face. Hiccup clutched his watering eyes, the gastric spasm shunting the blade deeper into bone and muscle. He leaned on the hilt until the fit had passed, then he spat and hauled his blade free with great effort, and kicked the corpse aside, and blinked and shook his head, sweat falling into emerald eyes and mucus flying into his beard; through the blur he saw too well-armored heads bearing up the hill towards them. Drawing a shaky breath, he braced himself to take their blows, when a scalloped blade whistled by, and both heads vanished, the skulls splintering apart in a bloody collage of eyeballs and brains and liquid ropes. A gaping gorge and, from his eye's corner, he saw Thane Garrick wrangle in the huge two-handed weapon and plant it's point into a third head as it bobbed up from a nearby pile.

Snotlout paused, his mouth heaving wide in his blood-smeared, beard-covered face, "I asked you to watch my back, Haddock."

Hiccup also battled to catch his breath, and managed to allow a smile on his face. "It would seem I'm still not up to fighting par," he admitted.

There was a lull in the assault and the three men fell abreast and they bludgeoned and stabbed those wounded within reach, and then they rested, and for a moment the docks boasted no life standing but their own. Hiccup prayed their chief had called off their assault, and that they had retreated to the large fleet they had sailed in on. They talked of dragons, and friends, and rest and hot food and soon they were forced to regain their line and assume their stations when the haunted sounds of war drums rose up from the harbor. For a moment, Hiccup felt improved. The pain in his leg had subsided briefly and he reached down to pick out bits and pieces of brain matter and flesh that had caught in the metal joins of his prosthetic. Turning towards the fading sunlight, Hiccup turned back to the shambles village before him and recruited his sprit.

Thus, the second ten minutes had passed, or so he had guessed. For them, time passed in the colorless faces of the dying. His body felt limber, his chest as sound as the drums on the enemy fleet. His mind remained crystal clear. His second wind as come, as he knew it would. He rolled his shoulders and loosened his grips and settled down to meet what was yet to come. It could only get worse, but he was up for it. Familiar footsteps thundered behind him, and toxic green eyes met his line of vision. Toothless had returned, fully matured and an unholy force of nature. A fresh wave of fanatical Langerhans foamed from the darkness towards the docks. He blew out his breath and drew a deeper, more calming one. As the only remaining champions of Berk braced themselves, Snotlout fetched up alongside his cousin, smacking his lips. He caught Hiccup's look.

Snotlout grinned and said: "Well?"

The twisted grin on Hiccup's scared face gave him away. He clapped Snotlout on the back and laughed and said, "Glory."

End.


	6. Interlude

Friday, June 10th, 2011: Update for At Helheim's Gates

Hello, everybody! First off, I just wanted to thank everybody for their kind words and inspirational reviews. Writing is not an easy process for me, when the ideas hit, well… you can see. I've gotten several inquires as to whether or not the story is over. Truth be told, I am… unsure. I don't think I ever really had an end to it, I think it's just going to go until I've run out of ideas. Regardless, all of my stories will be going on a hiatus, as I will be traveling out of the country from September 1 to November 30, where I will be studying aboard in Vienna, Austria. I hope you all continue to enjoy my work and spread the word. This is the most serious piece of work I've ever attempted to tackle.

Ash


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